Tia's birthday today! Hope she had a good one. We did refrain from calling the first few times we thought of it! For us it was late at night, but in Australia it was quite early. We thought Lisa might not appreciate a 3am birthday call, although Tia might have enjoyed starting her birthday really early!!

Today we did a lot of driving as we went across the border into the Czech Republic. (Don’t you like the 'UFO’ colony we saw along the highway? No idea what it really was!) A bit nervous at first as we knew there was some sort of road tax for non-Czechs, it was another strange language and we didn’t have any money at first. Made it difficult to park in the city of Ostrava with all its paid parking! Finally we found a parking spot near Town Hall and information

. Got some money - Czech Koruna – which we gathered had quite a different relative value to the Australian dollar. It was a dead giveaway when we got a $1,000 note from the teller machine. Works out that the exchange rate is around 17 to 1. So we really didn’t get much money out of the ATM – only about $60! Sat down and had a real Czech meal – kanci kyta s sip and svick na smet – roast boar’s leg and ?? (John couldn’t even work out what his was!) Anyway, it was quite a high end meal and very delicious for only $30 altogether!

Speaking of other culinary delights – John bought a trdelniky from a street van. The guy was really surprised we only bought one. As we were eating it we could understand why and wished we’d taken the hint and bought two! Still drooling thinking about it!

If we talking eating, surely we can talk toilets?? Haven’t noticed anything different in Poland but in Czech Republic, you have to get your toilet paper from outside the cubicles near the wash basins. So you plan before you go in! If you don’t get enough too bad!! Saw others come in and it was so automatic for them to walk in, get their paper and then find an empty toilet! You’ll notice John took the picture – the ladies toilet was too busy for me to take photos

Found the Czech Republic green, pretty, interesting buildings. Coming back the border was in the middle of a bridge over a river. We took matching photos. John’s standing on the Polish side under their border crossing sign and I am standing on the Czech side under their matching border crossing. We think between the signs must have been no man’s land judging by the car parked there. Who was going to rouse at them? The middle of the bridge didn’t belong to either of the countries!